


The Other Side of the Same Pane

by ForensicSpider98



Series: Love After the Fact [37]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, All this stress is bad for the baby, Altean Adam (Voltron), Altean Prince Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Aromantic Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Balmeran Hunk (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Galra Shiro (Voltron), Galran Prince Keith (Voltron), Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Multi, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Olkari Pidge | Katie Holt, Post-War, it's keith. keith is the baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24132214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForensicSpider98/pseuds/ForensicSpider98
Summary: Lance and Adam have a moment
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Alfor/Coran (Voltron), Allura/Lotor/Romelle (Voltron), Haggar/Zarkon (Voltron), Hunk & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Love After the Fact [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635043
Comments: 19
Kudos: 200





	The Other Side of the Same Pane

“Hey, beloved.” Lance sets his hand on Keith’s back. “Have you seen Adam?”

Keith turns from Lanval and Gloriana, frowning. “No, I haven’t. Not for a while, actually. Isn’t he supposed to stay close?”

“Yes… I’d better go find him. The only reason he’d disappear like this is if there was an emergency.”

“Send for me if you need help.” Keith smiles. 

Lance will not send for Keith if he needs help. The young prince is clearly more than a little intoxicated. He hands his spouse off to Hunk and Pidge with a pointed look.

“Thanks, beloved. I will. Take a minute if you need it.” Lance kisses his spouse’s cheek, runs off without a word. Keith rolls his eyes at his retreating back before turning back to his friends.

Lance slips through hallways, checking all the places Adam could feasibly be before he stumbles upon the attendant entirely by accident.

Adam’s in a dead-ended hallway, sitting on a ledge beneath a stained glass window, feet tucked up to his chest. Like he’s trying to look as small as he feels. Adam doesn’t get like this often. Rarely in all the time Lance has known the man. Lance sighs, settles across from his old friend. “So… why the dramatic posing?”

“Takashi tried to kiss me,” Adam murmurs.

“...Not seeing the problem here, buddy. If Shiro tried to kiss me -well I’d obviously have to decline- but I’d be quiznaking flattered.”

“He tried to kiss me to fulfill some bet with Keith. Otherwise he has to eat a plate of Altean food. Keith has to do the same to you, by the way.”

“Ah.” Lance chuckles, earning a sharp look from his attendant. There are very few things Lance knows more about than Adam, but this is one of them. “I think I see the issue here.”

“Men are idiots?” Adam suggests, clearly still bitter. And visibly hurt, an unusual emotion for the shady attendant.

Most people don’t know, but beneath the slippery exterior, Adam is exceptionally vulnerable. At the end of it all, he’s just another one of Altea’s lost children. The ones who grew up alone. They've all developed their own way of coping: Lanval is a bit self-important to hide his abandonment issues; Lance works himself into the ground to avoid dwelling on his destroyed sense of family and community; and Adam keeps everyone at arm-and-sword's length so no one can hurt him.

It took Lance the better part of a centaphoeb to become friends with him.

“I _wish_ men were that simple. Even if they were, this isn’t an issue of men. It’s an issue of siblings.”

“Siblings?” Adam glances at him. The man has no siblings, no surviving family. He only really has Lance.

“Yes. Here’s what happened. Shiro probably dared Keith, his shy younger brother, to kiss me because we have feelings for each other but we’ve been ignoring it because we're idiots and he's a kit. Keith likely dared Shiro to do the same to you because he was having fun. Shiro, being the meathead-with-a-heart-of-gold older brother, had no choice but to rise to the challenge or be perceived as a coward.”

“So… siblings in cahoots are idiots?”

“Exactly.” Lance grins, watches Adam’s usual slippery second skin slide back over his features. “They play into one another and everything escalates. Sooner or later, things get out of hand. It’s inevitable. Obviously, Shiro took it too far, taking something that would have been very big for you, and trivializing it.”

Adam’s green-and-gold eyes find his, the matching scales still dull. Lance smiles encouragingly. His attendant chuckles, recognizes the upcoming sequence of events. They’ve gone through these motions before. “What should we do about it?”

“Easy. Wait until they eat their Altean meal and then make the first move.” Lance’s curling smirk fades as Adam fades back into his shell. “Are you certain you’re alright?”

“I am at a loss.” The Altean stares through the glass to the frozen world below.

“What about?” Lance asks. He already knows ‘what about’, but he’ll leave it up to his friend whether they talk about it.

“I felt… disappointed.”

“In Shiro?”

Adam huffs, draws a finger down a pane of painted glass. “Not exactly.”

“Disappointed concerning what you might mean to him?”

“It seems that I was a means to an end. I think I understand better now, but at that moment, I felt used.”

“How did you feel before?” Lance asks, propping a foot up on the ledge, resting his cheek on his knee.

“...Noticed.” Adam tips his head against a purple flower petal. “I’m always hidden away, ever present, never seen. It’s nice to be seen and acknowledged, rather than seen and ignored. I understand that remaining unseen is vital to my job, but it’s still nice.”

“It is nice, isn’t it, having something new?” Lance smiles. “So many people criticized my…”

“Slut phase?” Adam suggests.

“Sure. My slut phase. They’d tell me that it would make me less devoted, less capable of love when the time came. But I’ve never felt anything for anyone. Not like I do with Keith. I can’t imagine having that with anyone else. It feels powerful and amazing and I know there’s something special there.”

“Is this leading into some tangent about interplanetary relationships or something?” Adam mumbles. “Because I’m really not in the mood.”

“Nah, I just meant that you and I know what’s right for us, not anybody else. We’re too different from them. If what’s right for you is to be that captain’s… whatever weird dynamic you two end up having, do it. What’s right for me is a real life with Keith, and I am going to do it. After he eats some Altean food.”

“I bet you won’t go through with it. You won’t make him eat it.” Adam smirks. “You’re too soft.”

“Probably. But you’ll enjoy watching Shiro choke on it, won’t you?”

“Indeed I will.” Adam stands, stretching his arms above his head. Lance does the same, arching his back. “Your father wandered off somewhere, just so you know. I followed his trail, but he managed to slip away.”

“He probably went to visit Romelle. He has a soft spot for her. They were friends before the accident.”

“Of course. I forgot. It’s odd for him to not be ruining everything.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Lance tugs on his friend’s arm. “Come on. You need to look like you’re having tons of fun without Shiro. It’ll crush his little heart.”

“That does sound like fun.” Adam smiles for real, a flash of genuine emotion breaking through as he slips off the ledge. “You know me so well.”

“Also, Keith is drunk. It’s really funny.”

“That I’ll have to see.”

Lance grins, linking his arm with Adam’s to tug him along.

**Author's Note:**

> Next time on Love After the Fact: Keith kiss-blocks himself (temporarily).


End file.
